re: What year did you stop writing checks and balancing your checkbook?

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some people we deal with don't do venmo or zelle and want payment when the job is done,

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Cash. You're dealing with idiots that don't realize they can get Zelle and Venmo with a TIN (ie, they don't need to have SSNs and be legal.) But if I pay you in cash, I want a cash discount. Checks aren't payment. The check being cashed and cleared is payment.

I've been writing checks and balancing my accounts since about 1950 and don't plan to abandoning personal control of my accounts until I die. It's slowing down a bit though, I have only written 48 so this year. And yes, I have credit cards and some direct deposit but no automatic withdrawal allowed.
As just one example as to why I won't allow direct withdrawal, I got kited by the phone company once on illegitimate charges that they wanted to make that would have been drawn directly from my account if I had permitted direct withdrawal.
Pissed me off when the government forced direct deposit of social security checks because if they can put it in then they can take it out too.

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I write 4 checks a year because the fricking garbage company still operates like it’s 25 years ago.

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I send certified checks to the IRS & a State Treasury on a quarterly basis.

So eight times a year I USE a check.

The funds are drawn from my account so I didn’t write them and I don’t reconcile them either.

I haven’t “balanced” my account in over 20 years.

1988

I've written 15 checks this year. est. taxes, mortgage, water, pest control, trash pickup, HOA, hair(wife). If I'm able to pay online without a fee, I will. Otherwise I'll just take a check by the office.

never balanced a checkbook.

2003/4 ish

It was around the time I added a couple of hotel rewards cards due to a promotion that was requiring a lot more travel.

It hit me that USAA’s online bank records were always correct and that my efforts to duplicate the effort with less accuracy was just stupid.

I found a book of checks in a box cleaning out my closet last month. It still had my parents address on it. I haven’t lived at home in 26 years.

I don’t use checks anymore. My kids school finally started accepting Venmo so my wife doesn’t use them either. It’s not that I mind, it’s just they had a bad habit of waiting weeks to deposit them and I don’t like that.

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For many things the school does not take cards, and I’m not sending large amounts of cash to school.

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Our kids go to very, very different schools. Pretty much everything is digital at ours.

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If you have young kids in school, you still use a checkbook

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I’ve never had to write a check for school related stuff.